the love of Christ – Meghan E White

Love is patient.

Love is kind.

It does not envy.

It does not boast.

It is not proud.

It is not rude.

It is not self-seeking.

It is not easily angered.

It keeps no record of wrongs.

Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices in truth.

It always protects.

Always trusts.

Always hopes.

Always perseveres,

Love never fails.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8a, NIV

This perfect love has no jealousy, or boasting, or pride, or unkindness, or rudeness, or selfishness. There is no place for impatience, short-temperedness, or keeping a list of wrongs. Love never delights in evil and always rejoices in truth. It protects and trusts, always hopes and perseveres. Godly love never fails.

Agape is the Greek word for love used in this infamous passage of scripture. This is God’s love. And this is how we are to love others. It’s impossible to show this kind of love without knowing Jesus. It takes the power of the Holy Spirit within every believer to share this agape love. We have to be filled before we can pour out God’s love on people.

Agape is self-sacrificing. It truly is death to ourselves. Jesus said in order to follow him we must deny ourselves and take up our cross daily (Luke 9:23). That is the only way this powerful love from God can flow from us. It’s not about us, It’s about Him.

How do we know what love is?

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 1 John 3:16, NIV

Jesus laid down his life for us while we were still sinners. This is the highest form of love. We are to love our brothers and sisters with the same sacrificial love. Impossible in our strength. Only possible through Jesus.

Where does love come from?

Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 1 John 4:8, NIV

There is no real love apart from God. He himself is love and we cannot love without knowing Him through Jesus Christ.

As Christians we get to share this agape with those around us. This beautiful love that God gave us through Jesus can overflow from us to every single person we have in our lives and even those we cross paths with each day. This love is powerful and nothing like any kind of love in the world. We fall short at times, and don’t always love the way we should, but God’s love will never fail.

Help us Lord, to love like you do.

Love you all,

Meghan

If you need prayer please leave your request in the comments or drop me an email (go to my contact page).

Photo credit: Meghan E. White

Have you ever received a love letter? It’s the most amazing feeling, especially if the letter was written by someone you really cared for deeply. It brings all those happy, happy feelings. You sigh. Your heart goes pitter patter, and you can’t believe that another human loves you that much. Romantic love is a wonderful experience. But those feelings don’t last. Those type of feelings will come and go. It’s just our humanity.

Human love has limits. God’s love has no limits.

There is no love like the love of Christ. It cannot be measured. The love of Christ goes beyond our human understanding. It is deeper, wider, and greater than any human love we will ever experience.

My pastor would hold up the Bible and tell us, “This is God’s love letter to you”. When we read our Bibles God is speaking to us. The Bible is the greatest book ever written, telling the greatest love story in all of history, God’s love for us.

This beautiful prayer from Paul is filled with love. I love it! He penned these words to mostly Gentile Christians.

A Prayer for the Ephesians

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Ephesians 3:14-21, NIV

This entire prayer is powerful. There are a few parts that really speak to me.

For this reason I kneel before the Father. Paul starts with kneeling before the Father. This shows humility and reverence.

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being. Jesus strengthens us with power through His Spirit. Wow! He equips us with supernatural power to accomplish good things.

So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Jesus wants to take up residence in our hearts but it takes faith. We have to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ to receive Him.

To grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. We cannot measure the love of Christ. It’s width, length, height, and depth has no bounds. That’s how much Jesus love us.

That you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. We need to be filled up with God, not ourselves. We must make Jesus Lord in our lives. We receive God’s love to then show that love to others.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine. God’s abilities are unlimited. We are finite in our thinking, He is infinite. He is able to accomplish anything we ask of Him, and then some. And always according to His perfect will.

Pray this awesome prayer for your loved ones. Pray this for yourself. Pray this for the body of Christ. May these powerful words go right to your heart.

Love you all,

Meghan

Photo by Karolina Grabowska from Pexels

Tag: the love of Christ

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